Secrets of the Job Hunt

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

There's a provocative post by guy kawasaki on his blog about getting a job in silicon valley. His advice is really for anyone/anywhere to follow so i suggest reading it. Gretchen over at JobSyntax disagrees with his resume mantra about only being one page. And I'd have to concur with her.

Your resume should be tailored to each opportunity which means it should be as long as you need it to be.

The "one-page resume" is one of those job search myths that have been perpetuated over the years. There just isn't enough consensus among resume writers and career coaches for "the proper length". What that tells you--- the jobseeker --- is that the length of your resume is up to you.

But if you are set on keeping it to one page consider using a blog or online resume to expand on your skills and experience. You can just use the resume as a quick summary and send recruiters online to get a deeper look into your skills.

Get the latest on diversity issues in the workplace at Diversity Jobs.

1 comment:

One question that always helped me was: How do my skills and credentials stack up against the type of person you expect to hire in this position?

This always seems to generate an open reply from the interviewer and I get a flavor of if I’m the right person for the position I’m interviewing for. If I’m under-qualified, in the interviewers opinion, then maybe there are other skills that I could discuss that would be relevant to the job requirements or maybe I will decide the job is not for me.

If I’m overqualified, them maybe it is not a good fit or I can downplay some of my talents to assure the interviewer that I a good candidate for the position.

I’ve got a lot of juice out of that question to help me determine if I’m a good fit for the company and if position matches my needs.